


PDA Police

by smilesprout



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, M/M, canon compliant dreamies with some minor changes, rated T bc the dreamies (mostly mark) have potty mouths, renjun being the PDA police
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 05:42:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17740085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilesprout/pseuds/smilesprout
Summary: donghyuck is overly affectionate, mark is oblivious, and their friends have had enough of their… public displays of affection.





	PDA Police

**Author's Note:**

> there are some minor tweaks from the canon compliant for the sake of this story -  
> e.g. i am aware mark and haechan room with 127 irl but let’s pretend the dreamies all live in the same dorm, and that mark’s graduation from dream hasn’t happened at this point in time of the story :,)
> 
> there's a reference to this  urban dictionary definition  of PDA police  
> and forgive me if there's errors/typos, i've proofread this myself which is always kinda unreliable  
> enjoy!!

 

Mark doesn’t want to have friends. Not when they’re Donghyuck, Renjun, Jeno, and Jaemin.

“I’d like to have a group discussion,” Renjun says, arms crossed. “It’s important.”

Mark can already tell by the way Renjun sceptically narrows his eyes at Mark that whatever Renjun has to say will definitely not be important. He should have known it the moment Renjun barged into Mark’s room with Jeno and Jaemin flanked on either side of him like bodyguards.

“Save it.” Mark lets out an audible sigh. “I’m trying to nap.”

“A nap?” Renjun’s eyes widen comically. He places a hand over his mouth in feigned shock. “You’re going to take a nap while you’re all cuddled up to Haechan like that?”

“Renjun.” Donghyuck rubs his eyes tiredly. “Stop disturbing our nap.”

“Group discussion. Now.” Renjun walks over to the bed where Mark and Donghyuck are lazily draped over each other. Jeno and Jaemin follow suit.

“Group discussion?” Donghyuck sits up slowly, tugging Mark up by the arm. He barely exerts force, but Mark gets the idea and sits up as well. “Without Chenle and Jisung?”

“Yes, without Chenle and Jisung.” Renjun narrows his eyes even further. “You’ll see why.”

Mark wants to will his tired body to stay up in a sitting position, but he slumps down onto Donghyuck’s lap instead. “I’m not seeing why. Hurry up and leave.”

“No.” Renjun deadpans. “This is important for the future of our group.”

At that, Donghyuck blinks a few times. “Alright, go on.”

Mark groans and attempts to sit up once again, mumbling a few curses under his breath.

“As your best friends, we understand that you guys like each other so much. We get that.” Renjun waves his hands dramatically as he continues, “But we’d appreciate if you could refrain from… touching each other.”

Donghyuck’s mouth drops to an ‘o’ shape. “What?”

“What he means is,” Jeno says slowly. “Turn down the PDA.”

“Turn down the what?”

“Your public displays of affection,” Renjun replies immediately. “It’s hurting the eyes of our group’s babies.”

“Chenle and Jisung.” Jeno adds nonchalantly before Donghyuck can question anything.

“And how the fuck are we hurting the eyes of Chenle and Jisung?” Mark snaps, his tired voice rising into annoyance.

“They are our children!” Renjun squawks as if he were scandalised. “And you two are getting it on in front of them shamelessly!”

“We are not getting it on in front of anyone.” Mark says calmly.

“Yeah,” Donghyuck agrees, but with a confused expression. “We’re just cuddling?”

“Just cuddling.” Renjun mocks with a disgustingly sweet voice. “You two are practically making out in front of our minors. That’s not okay.”

“Making out?” Donghyuck shrieks. “We never made out in front of anyone!”

Jaemin, who had been watching the feud amusedly finally decides to speak up. “You two go everywhere together and touch each other a lot. You guys also bicker like an old married couple.”

Donghyuck huffs in frustration while Mark gapes at Jaemin in disbelief. A moment of silence passes before Mark slowly opens his mouth to talk. “This is stupid. We’re just really close friends.”

“If it’s bothering you guys so much, we’ll do something about it.” Donghyuck says, which causes Mark to direct his shocked expression towards Donghyuck.

“I’m glad you reached that conclusion. I do indeed have a proposal for what you guys could do about it.” Renjun smiles wickedly. Mark has a bad feeling about the next words that are about to come out of Renjun’s mouth.

“From now on, every time you two demonstrate any act of affection in front of us, there will be a punishment.”

Mark fucking knew it. He knew this kind of bullshit was going to come. But before he can speak, Donghyuck beats him to it:

“Punishment?”

“Yes, I’ll decide them.” Renjun’s smile widens. “Don’t worry, they’re simple ones that won’t legitimately hurt you guys. Like a flick on the forehead.”

If Mark wasn’t so worn out, he would’ve called bullshit and fought against Renjun. Unfortunately, both his body and mind seem to be far too tired to even attempt an objection. He hopes Donghyuck will fight for both of them instead, and—

“Okay.”

“What?” Mark shoots up from his slouch and shoots Donghyuck the best glare his fatigued self can manage. “Did I hear that wrong? Or did you just agree to Renjun’s stupid scheme?”

“Oh, c’mon Mark—”

“Mark hyung.” Mark corrects habitually. Of course, he knows Donghyuck will never actually listen. He also knows that he himself doesn’t care either, to be frank. They’ve ignored the one year age difference between themselves ages ago.

“Shut up.” Donghyuck waves him off indifferently. “We’ll just prove to them that we don’t publicly display any acts of affections or whatever. We’ll prove to them that they’re being stupid.”

Mark opens his mouth to protest, only for Donghyuck to shush him.

“Renjun’s never going to let it go.”

Mark shuts his mouth. He ponders on Donghyuck’s words for a good few seconds. They aren’t that affectionate, are they? And Donghyuck’s right, Renjun is the type of person to never let it go. It would be easier to play along with his game and beat him in it instead of refusing to play along. Mark is too tired to make coherent decisions anyways.

“I hope we’re not going to regret this.” Mark murmurs unenthusiastically.

“Don’t worry, Canada.”

They end up regretting it less than a day later.

 

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

 

Donghyuck figures if there’s one thing he’s terrible at, it’s taking care of people. He’s always told himself that he was good at socialising—he was a people’s person. But somewhere along his extroverted personality, he’d missed the whole ‘being able to take care of others’ factor.

Donghyuck is staring at Mark as they sit across each other on the floor of the practice room, all heavy breaths and sweaty bodies. They had a good dance practice, and Donghyuck can confidently say that no one was slacking off today. The team’s synchronisation seemed to be top notch today, which gave Donghyuck a wave of satisfaction that couldn’t be explained with words. Mark had danced with his usual enthusiasm, and no one would look at him today and dare say he was slacking off. Donghyuck knows Mark’s performance hadn’t had any deterioration in any way.

He also knows that despite his perfect performance, there’s something off about Mark.

“Canada, your face looks uglier than usual, what’s up?” Donghyuck calls out nonchalantly.

“Donghyuck,” Mark replies without sparing him a glance. “I’m going to kick your ass if you don’t shut up.”

Donghyuck knows he would have taunted him further if it were another day, but there’s close to no bite in Mark’s jeering words, and he decides to drop it.

Mark is yawning more often than usual, dozing off and pinching himself awake more than a couple of times, and is half-sleeping as they start their walk back to their dorm (Donghyuck has to hold him to prevent him from falling face-flat onto the ground).

They walk close to each other most of the time anyway, so it isn’t strange at all when Mark beckons him over with a lazy arm and slumps onto Donghyuck’s side, leaning half his weight on him. Donghyuck looks at Mark’s drooping eyelids and slack arms before slipping his hand into Mark’s, giving it a light squeeze.

They exit the room like that, sides firmly pressed to each other and hands loosely clasped.

A minute later, they hear the rest of their group exiting and a theatrical gasp that follows suit.

“What do you guys think you’re doing?” A voice shrieks. It’s Renjun.

Everyone pauses in their steps and looks at Renjun, then at Mark and Donghyuck. Well, everyone except Jisung, who is looking off to the side with an embarrassed look, pretending he isn’t secretly looking from the corner of his eye.

“Mark seems to be really tired,” Donghyuck says monotonously. “It’s probably sleep deprivation.”

“And why does that make it okay for you two to hold hands?” Renjun sighs noisily like a disappointed mother.

“You guys didn’t even last a day,” Jeno comments amusedly.

Renjun clicks his tongue. “PDA count one.”

He tries to complain, tries to argue that this is stupid, but the rest of the group seems to be on Renjun’s side. Those brats.

“What? I—”

“You agreed to it.”

“But Mark is—”

“—perfectly capable of walking by himself.”

“This is—”

“—what you guys agreed to. We’re choosing the punishment.”

Donghyuck turns to Mark out of desperation, silently pleading for help with his eyes. Mark’s eyes are still half-closed and he has a slight frown on his face. He exhales quietly.

“Told you it was a bad idea.”

 

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

 

Renjun barging into Mark’s room unannounced becomes a frequent occurrence in the next week.

Donghyuck has his limbs sprawled across Mark’s bed, in the middle of a complaint, as Mark tunes most of it out from his seat in front of his desk when the door slams open. Renjun is flanked with Jeno and Jaemin on either of his sides.

Well, this is a familiar scene, Mark thinks.

“Mark. Haechan. First punishment.”

Donghyuck groans loudly.

“What.” Mark and Donghyuck say in unison, voices flat.

Renjun rolls his eyes. “No need to sound so glum about it. The first one’s not too bad.”

Mark isn’t sure how or when it happened, but a split second passes, and there’s a fucking toy hammer in Renjun’s hand. Mark and Donghyuck gape at Renjun with their mouths hanging open.

“Renjun,” Donghyuck starts slowly.

“Don’t worry. It doesn’t actually hurt, okay?” Renjun grins, resembling a Cheshire cat.

Donghyuck bolts up from his comfortable position on Mark’s bed, scampering to the corner of the room with eyes as wide as saucers. Renjun approaches him swiftly, and Mark thinks about how much the sight looks as if it was taken right from a horror film. Except the hammer is a bright red rubber toy hammer, and the ‘evil serial killer’ is a… vertically challenged eighteen-year-old boy.

Mark decides not to express that thought out loud. He doesn’t want Renjun to break his neck.

Renjun continues stomping towards Donghyuck, as Donghyuck makes an attempt to somehow merge his body into the wall and—

“Ow!” Donghyuck shrieks as the sound of toy hammer against head fill the room. “Ow, owowow—Huang Renjun!”

Mark’s laugh is cut short when the toy hammer is promptly smashed into his own head. By the end of that, Renjun is the one laughing thunderously as Jeno and Jaemin barely make attempts to hide their snickering, and the trio leaves Mark’s room. Mark is no longer laughing.

Donghyuck and Mark return to their respective spots (Donghyuck on Mark’s bed and Mark on his desk chair). A minute or two passes in an undisturbed silence before Donghyuck breaks it:

“Where did they even get that hammer?”

Mark shrugs.

“Aren’t you gonna say it? I told you.”

Mark shrugs again. “We agreed to it. What did you expect?”

“I thought it was a joke. I didn’t think they’d actually go through with it!”

“And you thought Renjun would let it go as a joke?”

“Well, no. But—”

“What’s bothering you so much? It didn’t actually hurt, did it?”

Donghyuck opens his mouth only to shut it again. He repeats the action a few times before settling on a shake of his head and a pout.

“So what are you so worried about? It’s just for fun, I don’t think Renjun means any harm.”

They sit in silence for a while longer, before Donghyuck decides to finally reply:

“Do you think we’re too close?”  
Mark stares at Donghyuck’s face for a good few seconds before coming up with his own reply:

“That’s bullshit.”

 

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

 

The only reason Donghyuck pecks Mark on the cheek is to cheer him up. While he knows Mark’s usual reaction is one of annoyance and distaste, he also knows he doesn’t actually hate it. He would even dare to say Mark sometimes appreciates the affectionate gesture.

Mark is always taking care of him and their group but he seems to be incapable of taking care of his own self. He looks tired these days (at least more tired than usual), and Donghyuck figures it isn’t the time to attack him with a bear hug and a string of amusing insults. So he gives him a kiss on the cheek instead.

Mark—being both used to it and too tired to complain—barely gives a reaction. He grunts softly, yawns, and goes back to writing in his notebook.

Someone gasps loudly.

“Oh my god!” Renjun shrieks. “Why are you two like this!”

Donghyuck doesn’t know where Renjun came from—he’s sure Renjun wasn’t standing in front of him two minutes ago.

“PDA count two!”

“What? I just—”

“You two are getting your hair dyed as your punishment,” Renjun says in a grave voice. “And I’m cutting yours too, Haechan.”

“Why do I get an extra punishment?” Donghyuck throws his hands up in exasperation.  
“Because you kissed Mark!”

Mark rubs the sleep out of his eyes. “Then why am I getting the punishment in the first place?”

“Because you just accepted it!”

Donghyuck and Mark exchange helpless smiles as Renjun storms off.

 

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

 

Mark doesn’t know if it’s just his own thought, but he thinks the second punishment is much worse than the first.

He understands that they’re having a break from promoting songs and that they’re free to do (almost) anything. He understands that his actions have consequences. However, he does not understand why Renjun would sabotage something so important to him.

“I can’t believe he’s going to dye my hair.”

Donghyuck pouts and crosses his arms. “This is the worst!”

“You two deserve it.” Renjun clicks his tongue, raising a pair of haircutting scissors.

Where the fuck did he even get that? Mark wonders.

“Where the fuck did you even get that?” Donghyuck says out loud.

Renjun rolls his eyes. “Don’t question. Now stay still so I won't stab your forehead.”

Mark scrunches up his face. “Well, that sounds disturbing.”

“Shut up,” Donghyuck says passively, barely any bite in his words. “You’re not the one getting threatened to be stabbed in the forehead.”

The scene turns out looking rather comical. Donghyuck has a permanent pout on his face as he aggressively scrolls and taps away on his phone. Renjun’s face is morphed into one of concentration that is much too intense to be the expression of someone who is giving a haircut. A bad one, at that. Donghyuck interjects the silence a couple times, shooting disdainful remarks towards Renjun.

“I think I’m going to shave off all my hair after this.”

Mark chokes on air at the image of a bald Donghyuck in his head.

Renjun huffs. “That’s a disgrace to my hard work.”

“Mark.” Donghyuck sighs, wiggling in his chair only to be shoved back into place by Renjun’s quick hand. “You’ll still love me even if my hair looks terrible, right?”

“Yeah, of course…” Mark replies subconsciously, attention not on Donghyuck’s words.

Renjun’s hands stop moving. “Oh my god! How do you guys manage to PDA while you’re doing a PDA punishment? How are you guys on PDA count three already?”

“What are you on about this time?” Not even a second later, Donghyuck’s jaw drops as he realises what he had just said. “I just… uh.”Mark blinks a few times. Renjun looks absolutely mortified, almost as if Mark and Donghyuck had said something to personally offend him and his family. They didn’t. They just said loved—

…

They just said they loved each other. Casually, and yes possibly in a joking manner—but the two knew they weren’t one hundred per cent joking about it. Perhaps if they had added a “no homo” at the end instead of snapping their heads away from each other and purposely avoiding conversation for the next hour, perhaps then it wouldn’t have been so embarrassing.

As soon as Renjun was satisfied with his hair job on Donghyuck, he had stormed out of the living room and into his own bedroom as he waved off a Renjun who shouted, “Don’t forget to wash that dye off in an hour!”

Mark groans.

There is no excuse for why anyone would say to their best friend that they would love them no matter what, whether it was in a roundabout away or not.

Donghyuck’s small comment had made his heart flutter in a pleasant way. And Mark doesn’t know how to deal with that.

He decides to shove all Donghyuck-related thoughts to the back of his mind as he continues on his day in his new blond (ugly, but not too ugly) hair.

 

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

 

Donghyuck doesn’t get over his embarrassment immediately, but he pretends he does.

He assumes both Mark and himself will prefer moving past that little scenario without making a big deal out of it. He’s probably the only one that had a mini mental breakdown at his best friend casually saying “I love you” in a roundabout way anyway. Everyone around Donghyuck knows about his abundance of expressive affection, and it should never be weird that Donghyuck casually throws out an “I love you” to any of his friends. Especially his close friends.

But it wasn’t Donghyuck that had said “I love you” with a sneaky smile and mindset ready to dodge Mark’s swipe at him. It was Mark who had said it. Donghyuck wonders for a split second if that’s exactly what he has always wanted to hear.

It was meant to be a joke and Donghyuck is taking this way too seriously.

…

Donghyuck easily falls back into a routine of casual bickering with Mark. There’s an extra layer of amusement in their quarrels now, with a newly found topic to squabble about—their new hair.

“Mark. Your hair looks like the kind of ramen you would cook. And you’re so shit at cooking you can’t even make cup ramen.”

“You can’t say anything with that hair. You look like a flaming hot cheeto.”

“At least I don’t look like I’m growing ramen out of my scalp.”

“Donghyuck. If you want to live, shut your mouth.”

“You look even uglier now.”

“Clearly, you haven’t seen yourself in the mirror.”

“I have, and I think I look fabulous.”

“Do you need to get prescription glasses?

“You need them.”“I think you’ve forgotten that I already do have prescription glasses.”

“Shut up.”“You shut up.”

Jeno lets out a loud sigh from the love-seat that he’s sprawled across. “You two both shut up.”

Just to be extra petty, Donghyuck sticks out his tongue at Mark before looking away. He’s ready for Mark’s palm to smack him on his forearm—but it never comes. He snaps his head towards Mark and scans his face. There’s definitely something wrong if Donghyuck’s estimate of Mark’s palm slapping him is wrong. His estimates are almost always accurate.

Okay, maybe Mark really is too tired. Donghyuck settles on that conclusion after searching and failing to find anything in Mark’s glazed expression.

“Mark?” Donghyuck calls out gently, after a few moments of comfortable silence.

He gets a soft hum in reply. Mark’s gaze is fixed straight ahead, at nothing in particular.

“Do you actually think I look ugly in his haircut?”

He’s curious. If Mark is just saying that to rile Donghyuck up, or if he really means it. If he really does mean it, Donghyuck knows that’s his cue to go for Renjun’s throat. For some reason, he trusts Mark’s opinion when it comes to fashion or appearance. He trusts Mark’s opinion on most things.

(After seeing how Renjun’s hair job had turned out, Donghyuck had squawked in horror and wore a hat for the entire week.

“That’s cheating!” Renjun had screamed, attempting to swipe the hat from Donghyuck’s head.

“But it looks so ugly!” Donghyuck had screamed back, dodging Renjun’s grabby hands.

Donghyuck had stopped caring exactly a week later when he decided to embrace his new appearance. His hair was starting to grow on him anyways.)

“What? Mark finally directs his gaze towards Donghyuck and furrows his eyebrows cutely. “You didn’t actually believe that, did you?”

“I want an honest opinion.” Donghyuck meets his stare.

“I thought you knew I was joking.” Mark wears the slightest frown on his face. “I think it looks kinda cute.”

“Oh?” Donghyuck raises an eyebrow. “Well, I’m glad.”

Jeno drags his attention away from his phone and clicks his tongue in disappointment. “I’m reporting you two to Renjun.”

“What did we do this time?”

“You just called Donghyuck cute.”

“Because he does look cute with that hair.” Mark frowns again. Donghyuck thinks Mark is frowning too much.

Jeno dramatically slaps his forehead. “You two are helpless.”

 

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

 

Mark decides that the third punishment is the worst. This brings him to the conclusion that the punishments can only get worse, which means this needs to stop.

“This needs to stop.”

Donghyuck looks up for a second, silently urging Mark to continue, before returning his attention to his phone.

“Look at us right now.”

Donghyuck lifts their handcuffed hands. “Oh, you mean this?”

Mark sends him an exasperated look.

“But it’s the punishment.”

When Renjun had suddenly appeared in front of the two approximately an hour ago with handcuffs in his hands, Mark had exactly two questions in his head:

Why was he holding handcuffs? And where did he get those?

He soon found himself being handcuffed to a Donghyuck that was way too calm about the whole situation.

(The two had rock-paper-scissored to decide who was going to have to sacrifice their dominant (right) hand, and to Mark’s dismay, it was himself.)

“We have to stay like this for twenty-four hours.”

Donghyuck shrugs. “Renjun was probably inspired from the internet. Handcuffed to their ex for twenty-four hours and watch them lose their sanity.”

Mark scoffs. “We’re not even exes.”

“And that’s exactly why it shouldn’t be a problem.” Donghyuck reasons calmly. “He’s not making us complete tasks or anything. We can just go about our day and I don’t see there being much inconvenience.”

“Have you forgotten the fact that I’m right handed? And that my right hand is attached to your left?” Mark raises his free hand in the air irritatedly. “How am I supposed to do anything?”

“Relax,” Donghyuck rolls his eyes. “It’s just for a day. You can ask me to do stuff for you. And we’re together all the time anyway, so it’s not much different from usual.”Mark stays silent and ponders on Donghyuck’s words. It is true indeed that they’re together all the time. They’re next to each other more often than not. Personal space isn’t a problem outside Mark ever so often pushing Donghyuck away teasingly when he gets too cuddly. But even when he’s pretending to be uncomfortable he usually doesn’t mind. He just doesn’t want Donghyuck to get too full of himself.

He decides that he doesn’t mind it too much, being physically attached to Donghyuck. Plus, Donghyuck is right: it’s only for a day anyway. He can give up his dominant hand for a day.

But there is one thought that hasn’t been solved:

“What if I need to go to the bathroom?”

Donghyuck doesn’t reply for a second. Two seconds. Then he bursts out laughing.

They go on about their day just fine. The bickering is kept at a minimum (surprisingly), and they hold hands sometimes (the handcuffs keep scratching their skin, they say).

“You two seem to be getting along better these days.” Jaemin comments, seeing their linked hands.

Mark and Donghyuck barely glance up from their comfortable position on the couch, leaning heavily against each other and watching a video from Donghyuck’s phone.

“I don’t hear as much bickering.”

Donghyuck pauses the video and looks at Mark directly in the eye. “Mark, you look ugly.”

Mark snorts and dares to let out a small smile. “Shut up.”

They end up falling asleep next to each other and argue that “it’s part of the punishment, so it doesn’t add to the PDA count.” Renjun looks unimpressed but lets it slide.

…

“Donghyuck, I want to get something from my room.”

“Mark, you can go by yourself. We aren’t handcuffed to each other anymore.”

“Oh. Sorry. Forgot.” Mark says sheepishly and escapes his embarrassment by scurrying away to his room as Donghyuck laughs lightly.

Mark knows he’s not supposed to use his best friend as a personal pillow. That doesn’t stop him from slinging his arm around Donghyuck’s waist and resting his head on Donghyuck’s shoulder when he comes back to the sitting room. Donghyuck is just comfortable in general, both metaphorically and physically. Though, he was usually the one that sacrificed his shoulder.

Mark really is tired.

Mark stopped counting his yawns after the nineteenth yawn throughout the day. Even though he had slept on Donghyuck’s shoulder earlier for a good thirty-minutes (before he was rudely woken up for practice), he was so tired that he had bumped into Jisung. And Jisung had been standing still. Mark had somehow walked straight into him.

When he gets to the practice room, he considers dropping to the floor and just sleeping there. In fact, he’s this close to doing it when Donghyuck stops him with a smack on the back. He swivels around and is met with Donghyuck’s concerned expression.

“What’s wrong?” Mark asks, trying to suppress the yawn that follows.

Donghyuck shrugs in a way that appears to be nonchalant, but Mark knows isn’t. “My body kinda aches everywhere but I don’t know why. We didn’t even go that hard yesterday.”

Mark frowns. “You didn’t stretch enough.”

Donghyuck scoffs. “I never stretch.”

“You’re one of the least flexible members, and you’re still young.” Mark’s frown deepens. “Stretch with me, now.”

“I’m only a year younger than you, grandpa.” Donghyuck pouts but sits down next to Mark anyways.

Mark lets out a giggle when Donghyuck attempts and fails miserably to touch his toes.

“Stop laughing at me, idiot!”

“Sorry,” Mark says in a tone that doesn’t sound apologetic at all but does stop laughing when Donghyuck shoots him a deadly glare. “How about I help?”

Donghyuck rolls his eyes but lets Mark move behind him and gently push on his back.

“Ow,” Donghyuck moans. “stop that!”

“But I barely put in any power and you’re still so stiff. How can someone so young be this inflexible?”

“Ah! That hurts!”  
“That’s a good sign, it means you’re loosening up.”

“Wait I think I’m getting there—ow, Mark!”

“Stop complaining, you big baby.”

With more loud cussing from Donghyuck and pushing from Mark, Donghyuck manages to barely touch the tip of his toes when the door slams open.

“Mark. Donghyuck. Holy shit!”

Oh, and looks who's here. Renjun and his two bodyguards, this time followed by a giggling Chenle. The bodyguard thing was getting really ridiculous. So was Renjun slamming doors open. Mark can already feel it coming, either another bullshit idea proposed by Renjun, or a PDA count.

“This is too much PDA!” Renjun exclaims and throws up his hands in the air.

“What exactly did we do this time?” Donghyuck looks confusedly from Renjun to Mark to Renjun again. “We were just stretching because I felt sore all over.”

“Stretching.” Renjun mocks. “Is that what the teenagers call it these days?”

Donghyuck throws Renjun an unimpressed expression. “We’re literally the same age.”

Mark wears the same expression. “I’m older than you.”

Renjun waves them off and continues. “Did you know? Chenle was outside the practice room not knowing whether to go in or not. The practice room is a shared room that he deserves to go into just as much as you two. But he didn’t. Wanna know why?”

Chenle rolls his eyes at Renjun. “I wasn’t hesitating for that long.”

“That’s not the point. Continue.”

“I just didn’t want to…” Chenle nervously looks at Mark, then Donghyuck before continuing, “disturb them.”

“Disturb us? From what exactly?”

“Basically, Chenle heard Donghyuck moaning through the door.”

Mark chokes on air, Donghyuck’s face becomes redder than his hair, and Chenle looks away. The demon trio remains unfazed. Renjun even pats Chenle on the shoulder and turns his disappointed face towards Mark.

“In front of our younger members. I don’t accept this kind of behaviour.”

“We were stretching!” Donghyuck squawks, both frustrated and embarrassed.

“That’s what, PDA count four?” Jaemin says with a slight smile, and Renjun nods gravely.

“Even you, Jaemin? You’re on the devil’s side?” Donghyuck says, looking sulky.

“He was always with them,” Mark replies with a sigh. He’s doesn’t even have the energy to be angry. That’s doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to murder every single person in the room.

Mark is tired.

 

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

 

Ever since the introduction of the PDA punishments, Donghyuck started to question his friendship with Mark.

He hadn’t questioned their closeness in the many years that they’d been friends. It was a given that he liked Mark, and he knew through Mark’s insulting remarks and swipes, that Mark liked him too. That was all fine.

Was their friendship that weird? Weren’t all friends this close?

Renjun was messing with his thoughts.

The week is mostly uneventful, save the several times Renjun called out some casual skinship and made up a dumb punishment. He’s bought the members Starbucks five times, done the dishes every other day, worn pyjamas on a group outing— Donghyuck thinks he’s done it all, all that can possibly be done. He can’t help but feel that the punishments have become less…severe. Not that he was complaining, or that he saying doing the dishes every other day was okay at all. He’d just gotten used to it—Mark probably was no different.

“You’re quiet today. Tired? Wanna move the movie night to next week?”

“No.” Donghyuck looks Mark dead in the eye. “I finally got you to watch a movie with me. You are not cancelling again.

“We can watch a movie together at any time,” Mark replies dryly.

“Yet you always refuse to watch one with me.” Donghyuck shoots back, tone equally as emotionless. “Was the last one that bad?”

“I fell asleep in the middle of it.”

“Right.” Donghyuck clicks his tongue. “You better not fall asleep in this one, Canada.”

“I’ll try not to,” Mark mumbles unconvincingly.

“Good.” Donghyuck clicks the play button and drapes the blanket over himself and Mark. “I need someone to talk to about the movie.”

“More like complain about everything that’s wrong with it.”

Donghyuck chooses to ignore Mark’s comment and turn his attention to the starting movie.

It starts out interestingly enough—Mark isn’t looking like he wants to sleep already, so that’s a good sign that his attention hasn’t slipped completely. Everything escalates quite quickly: there’s a scene of a woman and so much blood, and okay, that’s a bit graphic.

They stay silent and barely move. Neither of them reaches out to the popcorn bowl balanced between their legs. A character is dying in every scene, and they’re half-expecting the entire cast to die by the end of the movie. There’s blood in each death, and while Donghyuck would react funnily at a scary scene in a horror movie, he finds it hard to even speak, much less react to what’s happening in the movie.

“This is a bit… graphic.”

“Yeah.” Donghyuck softly.

Their hands had somehow found each other's and were tightly intertwined over their shared blanket. They had also shifted closer, arms bumping against each other. Another character dies, and the two shift even closer, until there is no space between them.

Many deaths and blood-filled scenes later, Donghyuck finds Mark’s arms wrapped around Donghyuck’s forearm, face hiding behind his shoulder, and eyes only half-open and ready to close at any scene. This is a position that Donghyuck usually finds himself in, so it is both strange and endearing that Mark is in that position instead.

“Are you… scared?”

He half-expects Mark to profusely deny it and detach himself off Donghyuck. Instead, he nods against Donghyuck’s shoulder.

“I know you don’t like horror but, uh, this one wasn’t classified as horror, so I didn’t know there would be so much…”

“Blood,” Mark answers instead. “And dying.”  
Donghyuck laughs nervously and somehow shifts even closer to Mark.

“We should go to bed.”

“Yeah.”

…

Donghyuck likes to think he isn’t as affected by scary movies as he really is. He does his best to react entertaining at scary scenes—and most of the time, they’re too fake to really scare him anyways. But there was something about the movie they’d just watched that gave him the creeps. He probably won't sleep tonight.

Donghyuck knows no one’s more sleep deprived than Mark at this current point in time, but he also knows he himself isn’t doing too great on sleep either. He doesn’t really have the heart to give up his quality sleep, but somehow the double size bed feels too empty. He’s definitely not going to sleep tonight.

Who needs sleep anyways? Not Donghyuck. Sleep is for the weak. That’s right. He totally didn’t pull an all-nighter two days ago. He’s fine.

He also finds himself walking to Mark’s room before he can stop himself.  
“I can’t sleep.” Donghyuck mumbles so quietly, he’s not sure if Mark can even hear him. Actually, Mark is probably sleeping and Donghyuck should really head back—

“Me neither.” Mark shuffles on the bed so he’s facing Donghyuck. He holds up his blanket in a welcoming gesture. Donghyuck unfreezes himself and hurriedly climbs in and lays down next to Mark.

Donghyuck is grateful really, that Mark so unquestioningly invited him to sleep next to him. They had slept next to each other before, it wasn’t anything new. But it was on the floor at a guest house where neither of the two was a centimetre away from falling off a bed.

Mark’s bed isn’t big at all. It definitely isn’t big enough for two grown men to be sleeping together in comfortably. But they make it work anyways.

Donghyuck moves so close to Mark that he can hear his breathing.

“Try to get some sleep,” Mark mutters quietly before closing his eyes. Well, it’s too dark for Donghyuck to see that, but he’s sure that’s what Mark does. Donghyuck closes his eyes too.

They don’t fall asleep right away. There’s a lot of shifting, light bumping of limbs, and they almost fall off the bed more times than countable.

Donghyuck’s asleep in a second. Then something smacks him in the face.

“Oomf— dammit, Mark!”

Donghyuck’s eyes fly open to find his vision being blocked by skin. He quickly figures out that it’s Mark’s arm.

“Get off me, idiot.” Donghyuck grumbles, flicking Mark’s arm off his face and massaging his forehead.

“S-sorry,” Mark mumbles quietly and slowly rises to a sitting position. Donghyuck wonders if he imagines the heavy breathing.

Donghyuck reaches for his phone and flashes the light near Mark’s face. He wasn’t imaging the heavy breathing. He pushes him into a sitting position as well.

“What happened?” Donghyuck prods in the most gentle voice he can manage.

“Bad dream.” Mark flinches when Donghyuck reaches for his arm. It takes him a few seconds to slowly ease into the touch. Mark looks like he’s seconds away from crying, and Donghyuck wishes it was himself who had the stupid nightmare instead.

“Sorry.”

Mark snaps his head towards Donghyuck. “It’s fine. It’s not your fault.”

Donghyuck hasn’t felt this helpless in a long time. This was worse than when he had lost his voice and couldn’t sing for a week. This was worse than when he sprained his ankle from dancing too aggressively.

He debates whether to hug Mark or pat his back. He presses his hands to Mark’s cheeks and kisses his forehead instead. Mark doesn’t flinch at his touch this time. Donghyuck thinks he hears a shaky exhale from Mark. And before he has a chance to sort his thoughts, he leans forward and kisses Mark on the lips.

Donghyuck tries to convince himself that this is to comfort his friend, this definitely isn’t anything PDA worthy, but he gives up after thinking that he definitely wouldn’t kiss Jeno or Renjun, or anyone else, really. Well—he has kissed Jeno but it was one-hundred percent to piss him off. He’s kissing Mark right now and thinking this is fifty percent I want Mark to feel better and fifty percent I just want to kiss Mark.

This definitely is some PDA worthy shit. He pushes that thought to the back of his mind.

Donghyuck pulls away from the kiss first but leans in again for a tight hug. Mark buries his face into Donghyuck’s shoulder and holds the hem of Donghyuck’s shirt. He exhales one more time, and when they lie back down on the mattress, Mark’s breathing is nearly steady.

“Mark?”

There’s a beat of silence. “Thank you.”

Their faces are so close that their noses are almost touching. “For what? I’m the one that came in here and disturbed you.”

Mark lets out a breathy giggle. “Then thank you for coming in and disturbing me.”

“You’re making no sense. Go to bed.”

“Good night.”

“Good night, idiot.”

 

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

 

Mark barely opens his eyes before he closes them again. The morning light is too bright, the obnoxious alarm is too loud, and his body feels compressed—oh, that’s just Donghyuck.

Wait, what?

Mark opens his eyes again, properly this time, to be met with Donghyuck’s sleeping face approximately two centimetres away from his own. He’s surprised by how oddly comfortable his position is—Donghyuck’s arm tightly encircled around his waist to keep him from falling off the bed, his own arm flopped comfortably on top of Donghyuck, their legs entangled.

Mark makes a mistake by blowing on Donghyuck’s face because Donghyuck’s eyes immediately snap open. Neither of them speaks as they untangle from each other and quietly treat to the living room.

They turn themselves in to Renjun and silently agree to never speak of the previous night again.

…

It’s a casual morning walk to the practice room when Donghyuck asks the same question he’d asked two weeks ago.

“Do you think we’re too close?”

And this time, Mark thinks about the question. He could reply with his own question and ask him to define ‘close’. He could give him a simple yes or no. He could tell him to stop spouting bullshit, to shut the fuck up and continue their peaceful walk.

He recalls an event from a few days ago that he thought was insignificant until now when he’s thinking. Really thinking. About the relationship he and Donghyuck have, if it’s weird, or unnatural, or whatever.

He’d happened to hear Renjun and Jeno casually conversing about the whole punishment thing, if it was really necessary, or if Renjun was just trying to get a laugh.

“I kinda feel guilty… we’re literally taking their pocket money.” Jeno had said. It was the week where PDA punishments were mostly Donghyuck and Mark buying the team coffee or meals.

“But remember why we started this whole thing in the first place? They’re just being dumb. And dense.”

“You’re such a dramatic matchmaker. You could’ve just told them with words, instead of pulling these… punishments.”

“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?”

Mark had been too tired that day, to even care beyond the fact that the conversation was about him. He only remembers his wish to headlock Renjun at that moment.

But he thinks about it now and thinks about Donghyuck’s question.

“Maybe,” He replies. “But does it have to be a bad thing?”

“Well, is it normal for friends to…” ” Donghyuck scratches his head and doesn’t finish his sentence.

“I don’t think we’re normal friends, though.”

“Oh.” Donghyuck looks like he’s at a lost for words. Mark has a fleeting wish that he would talk more—which is hilarious, considering one of his favourite things to tell Donghyuck is to shut up.

“We can do what we want to do,” Mark replies sternly. He doesn’t know where his new found confidence came from, but he hopes it stays before the embarrassment hits him. “Without Renjun being a brat and calling us out all the time.”

Donghyuck stares at Mark this time, and suddenly Mark feels the need to stare at anything else that isn’t Donghyuck. The shirt Donghyuck was wearing was interesting today. It was Mark’s shirt.

He’s very aware that his cheeks are heating up. He’s also aware, even without looking up, that Donghyuck’s probably blushing too, but he doesn’t feel any less embarrassed.

When they come back to the dorm after practice and openly cuddle in the living room, they’re not surprised to be greeted by Renjun with his hands on his hips.

“What does this looks like? A porno? This is a shared living space, keep it G-rated, kids!”

But he doesn’t follow with a PDA count this time.

“I get that you two are happily in love now, but at least spare the children.” Renjun jabs his thumb towards Chenle and Jisung, who are busy running away to the kitchen.

Mark and Donghyuck glance at each other.

They make an agreement that they would do what they want to do. Just not in front of Chenle and Jisung.

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally meant to be a twt au but it turned into this mess of words  
> anyways thanks for reading!


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